


Crossed

by Tierfal



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Angst, Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist (2003), Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist the Movie: Conqueror of Shamballa, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-16
Updated: 2013-01-16
Packaged: 2017-11-25 17:09:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/641201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tierfal/pseuds/Tierfal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A binary system in motion.</p>
<p>[Major spoilers for '03/CoS.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crossed

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes I write fic for [strangers who are sad](http://geth-metal.tumblr.com/post/40568933509/i-feel-sad-and-shitty), and it comes out as a pile of postmodern nonsense!

In the end, they fall apart for the same reason they fell together: because their hearts align in constellational complement.  Because they both love too hard, too much, too violently for anyone’s good.  Because they’re both waiting for cracks to creep through the foundations, and when the fissures show, they dig their fingers in to prove that they knew it all along.  Because a heart can’t break if you don’t give it time to register the impact.

Right?

Ed wears his battered heart on his blood-red sleeve, and the light of it is blinding.  _Can’t you_ see _how much I fucking love you?  Why won’t you just_ let _me?_

But Roy’s heart resides under deserts and oceans and pale sheets to protect it from the dust; Roy’s heart is subterranean; it is secret; it is hushed.  The distance dulls the pounding to a baseline very few can hear.  _Would it kill you to lower your voice?_

It would.  Ed fights face-to-face, tackles head-on, loves wholehearted; there’s no point getting out of bed if you’re not going to give the morning everything you’ve got.  Roy is made of stone and steel and white marble; Ed is slamming his fists into a blank wall, and _raising his voice_ is the only outlet he’s got left.

Jesus fuck, if this suitcase isn’t the only thing he can count on some days.  Some lifetimes.  He never should’ve lived this long; he was never meant to; with enough time, he always takes the good stuff and tears it open and fucks it up.

_Brother, he needs you._

_Like hell he does._

_I don’t mean in a romantic way.  I mean that he_ breathes _you, Brother._

_Well, he can go fuck himself.  Literally.  That’s all he ever really wanted, and you know it._

_The first time you were gone, he—_

_I know what he did.  Grand fucking gestures are all good and well when I’m_ gone _—but when I’m_ here _, in the fucking day-to-day, minute-to-minute shit—he’s still fucking snowed-in, you know that?  And I can’t spend my whole life digging him out._

_Brother—_

_I’ll—see you later, Al._

Roy looks at the world sidelong so it won’t notice his attention.  He plans on top of his plans, because contingencies kill, and he has lost too much, too many.  He cannot be weak; weakness is a target.  He cannot be open; openness is an invitation for invasion. He cannot be loved; love is for the deserving.  It can’t be simple; nothing is simple; there must be something underneath the promise.  He hasn’t earned promise, or promises, or honesty.  He cannot be happy; happiness is a complicated lie.  Once he untangles it, he’ll have been right from the beginning, right to question, right to doubt—

_Sir._

_Lieutenant?_

_I need you here, sir._

_I’m sitting right in front of you._

_Roy. I need you_ here _._

_I… know. But—_

_As far as I can tell, sir, this juncture actually makes things relatively easy for you._

_In precisely_ what _way is any of this_ ea _—_

_If you can live without him, you will move on. If you can’t, then you will make the compromises and the sacrifices required to get him back._

_How—_

_Stop thinking. Stop over-thinking. And drink your coffee, sir._

_…yes, Lieutenant._

In the end, they fit again for the same reason they fragmented: because when their jagged edges meet, the join is _almost_ seamless.

In the end, it was never an ending; the serpent can’t distinguish tail and tongue. In the end, the circle turns, and the constellation smolders in the sky.


End file.
